What is the key to high productivity via Scrum? According to Alex Brown, Chief Operating Officer at Scrum Inc., it all comes down to the retrospective and the “happiness metric.”
“We find that Scrum teams that aren’t making dramatic velocity increases each sprint are usually not devoting enough time to the retrospective at the end of each sprint,” Brown explains in this short video. Retrospectives are crucial in allowing the team to review their processes and identify the single improvement that would most benefit the productivity of the team.
How do you instigate a productive retrospective?
Brown and the team at Scrum Inc. are currently developing a new Scrum tactic utilizing what they’re referring to as the “happiness metric,” which they believe provides an actionable way to build a productive retrospective discussion into every sprint. At a high level, Brown explains, each member ranks their happiness with their own role on a scale 1-5. They then rank their happiness with the company using the same scale. Next, each member lists the things that are improving/holding back their happiness at any given moment. At the end of the meeting each team member reveals the one thing the team could do differently to improve their happiness. If team can agree on that one thing, making that change and/or removing that impediment can yield significant results.
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Video producer: http://labs.openviewpartners.com/